Careful incisions were made. Perfectly symmetrical cuts on my back. Two thin slits lay even. Cat eyes sliced clean then peeled open just enough to extract my appendix. A soft mass of tissue, no longer of use. In its place they inserted a robin’s egg. Brilliantly blue and speckled. The weight of gold nestled beneath my spine. Fragile but whole all the same.

The boy and I fell off the boat. I was struggling to cover him in purple paint. It was pasty and I was rubbing it up and down his tiny arms. He couldn’t understand why I was doing such a thing. Flipping over and twisting his elbow to get a better look. The paint ran in streaks down his arms and onto his full belly. Into his bellybutton. I knew he had to be covered before they would save us. The boat just hovered there until we finished.

I was taking a walk when she caught up to me. I wasn’t going very fast. Just winding up a rocky path. Up ahead, a set of stone steps curved themselves into a hillside and sunk deeply into the earth. She went first. I followed her inside. At the point at which the stairs widened and split, I moved beside her. The only thing dividing us, a thin metal rail. Both of our hands running over it — our guide in total darkness. We climbed the steps together. Perfectly in balance. My footsteps hallowed echos of hers. Her footsteps responding back in the same timbre. When we arrived at the top we were met by two solid doors, standing shut and glaring back. I tried pushing my body against the one before me. But, it was stuck. My soft flesh no match for this aged concrete. From her door hung a delicately spun spider web. Beaded, drooping pearls stretched across the entry way. She carefully pinched the edges and pealed the web aside, as if tying back a lace curtain. Then, she gestured for me to go first. I did and she followed before letting the web fall gently back into place and closing the door behind us.

The oranges were plump and rotting. Sagging back into themselves. I watched them, while she ate all of my tomatoes, drank the mint tea with leaves sprouting purple. It was a rooftop garden party where I got bored. So I leaned over and pin-pricked holes into his pristine white tennis shoes, spelling out the phrase, “Pretend you’re lost.” That same night, I shared a bed with a couple. They had me set the alarm for 4am. The wife was pregnant and this was when she walked.

Four tornadoes whipped around in circles outside my window. I was concerned about their closeness. When a baseball was thrown right into the window. Not shattering it, but leaving behind a small peep-hole, enough space for only the ball to pass through and for us to look out into the ominous dark sky. At eye-level, nothing was separating us from the elements. It wasn’t until later that I discovered the grey sky had been seeping in all along, and slowly expanding into the room.

With careful effort she attempted to pin the yellow finch to the map on the spot where she first lived. To represent herself. The location of her home. Even as she pushed the thin needle through the soft body of this gentle bird she felt regret. It was wrong to cause so much pain to this captured prey, only for the sake of being remembered. Each time this innocent creature fluttered its wings to free itself she was reminded of her wrongdoing. The guilt setting in, knowing that she was the cause of all this struggle.

It was feast or famine. We licked that cow carcass clean to the bone. Sliding our tongues down every last splinter of spine til it was slick like glass. Our primal instincts brought us together, spooning heaps of stew into each other’s mouths until we almost gagged. But it was necessary. Satisfying, even. Not until we were finally full could we come to stillness.

We were fishing. The fish I reeled in was gigantic. My stepmother was just going to cut off its head, right then and there. I stopped her and gave instructions to slice open its belly. She did and inside was a pile of shiny metal beads. This fish had been caught before.

We were standing in line, waiting for the boys. I wandered off to get my face painted. At the booth, I asked the face-painter to paint a bicycle on my cheek. Instead, she suggested an eyeball on the inside of my upper arm. At first I didn’t like this idea, but then I realized I would be too self-conscious with a bicycle on my face, so I agreed.